Rome (The Brussels Morning Newspaper) – European nations including Italy need to authorise economic migration if they want to overwhelm the challenge of ageing populations and enhance growth durably, European Central Bank Governing Council member Fabio Panetta stated.
What is Fabio Panetta’s stance on foreign legal workers in the EU?
“Measures that favour an influx of foreign legal workers constitute a rational response from an economic point of view,” Panetta, who is also Bank of Italy governor, stated. “The entry of regular migrants should be addressed in a coordinated way within the European Union, balancing productive demands with social equilibrium and reinforcing integration of foreign citizens into the education system and labour market.”
His remarks during an address in Rimini, Italy follow open conflicts within Premier Giorgia Meloni’s governing coalition over who has the right to become an Italian citizen. Matteo Salvini’s right-wing League last week struck Forza Italia, a more centrist coalition party established by the late Silvio Berlusconi, for keeping an opposition-sponsored measure to allow naturalization for non-citizens who’ve satisfied most of their education in the country.
How is Italy’s economic growth linked to its migration and fiscal policies?
Panetta expressed Italy is among the weakest links economically in Europe with “many of the EU’s structural weaknesses” to be seen there. This makes action necessary in areas including competition, productivity, more increased employment levels for young people and women, and “adequate migratory policies.”
He said that the crucial point for the euro area’s third-biggest economy remains reducing its public debt-to-GDP ratio and that the method to do this successfully is through adequate budgetary and fiscal policies but mainly economic growth.
Recent data revealed that the Italian economy expanded just 0.2% in the second quarter, decelerating slightly as net exports and industry acted as drags. Analysts notice it picking up again to 0.3% this quarter, and the period kicked off with a stronger-than-anticipated reading for industrial production in July. That may allow adequate momentum to reach Giorgetti’s development target of 1% for this year, with the Bank of Italy slightly less happy at 0.9%.
The element of the problem is a pandemic-era home-renovation tax incentive that’s been phased out but is still considered the deficit, extending Italy up to criticism from the EU, which has prompted an Excessive Deficit Procedure against it. On the bright side, the government is still spending its European Union pandemic recovery fund cash, which should support compensate for a more restrictive fiscal perspective. Panetta expressed the EU needs to continue giving common debt to favour growth, especially in fields like the digital and green transitions that require substantial investment. For its part, Italy must make its appointment to use the funds effectively, he said.
